Washington, 30 Jun - There are concerns on Capitol Hill that Iran is once again pressing the Obama administration to ‘shamefully’ sacrifice Tehran’s pro-democracy opposition as a concession to the regime in the ongoing nuclear negotiations, a former member of the White House National Security Council staff has warned.

"Concessions characterize Washington’s policy in nuclear talks with Tehran. Running out of ways to concede, there are rumors the ayatollahs may ask Washington to place the main opposition that rejects clerical rule — prodemocracy organizations — on the chopping block," Prof. Raymond Tanter of the Iran Policy Committee wrote in The Hill on Monday.

In an article published in Townhall, Ken Blackwell quotes the Russian proverb, “doveryain no proveryai,” which means “trust but verify”. It was a phrase Reagan would use many times in his dealings with Mikhail Gorbachev. The P5+1 countries that are negotiating with Iran, need to take heed of this proverb.

Ken Blackwell is a senior fellow at the Family Research Council and the American Civil Rights Union and is on the board of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. He is the co-author of the bestseller The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency.

Washington, 29 Jun - Former CIA Director Michael Hayden said Sunday that the United States has lost its edge going into the final days of international negotiations with Iran to curbs its nuclear projects in return for an end to economic sanctions.

“I would actually fear that the Iranians have the upper hand right now,” Hayden said on ‘Fox News Sunday’.

I was one of thousands of young Iranians who attended traveled to Paris on June 13th in support of the Iranian opposition. The rally represented strength of Iran’s opposition, and the political coalition they have gathered to back their alternate platform for Iran. But more than that, this year the gathering was a rallying call for the Iranian youth, who are united in a simple position, the time for this regime has come to an end.

Washington, 25 Jun - Iran's main opposition group on Thursday unveiled a detailed report on Tehran's strategies in nuclear negotiations with the world powers, which it is purportedly pursuing to keep its nuclear infrastructure intact and retain the capability to produce a nuclear weapon.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the group which first blew the whistle on Iran's secret uranium enrichment and heavy-water sites in 2002, provided the 28-page report titled “Can the Iran regime be trusted?” at a press conference in Washington.

US Secretary of State John Kerry telephoned Iran's foreign minister in recent days to tell him that Tehran must answer questions about whether its past atomic research was arms-related if it wants a nuclear deal, officials said.

The telephone calls came after Kerry raised eyebrows among some Western officials by saying the U.S. was "not fixated" on any past Iranian work, about which it already had "absolute knowledge," and was looking to the future instead, Reuters reported.

Washington, 25 Jun - The Obama Administration is "dropping its bottom-line by the day" in international negotiations over Iran's suspected nuclear weapons programme, US Rep. Ed Royce, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement on Wednesday.

A report by the Associated Press on Wednesday indicated that a possible agreement is set to offer Tehran high-tech reactors and convert Iran’s underground facility at Fordo for isotope production.

“The Obama Administration is dropping its bottom-line by the day. This morning it’s reported that Fordo will be used for isotope production. While we once demanded that this hardened mountain-top facility be shut, we are now on the verge of accepting technology there that can quickly be re-engineered for bomb-making fuel", Royce said in a statement.

London, 25 Jun - Former European lawmaker Struan Stevenson is warning that with the deadline for signing a nuclear deal with Iran looming on 30 June, US President Barack Obama seems to be committing to too many concessions and weakening the West's approach to the Iranian regime.

Stevenson on Thursday wrote in the United Press International: "Obama has conceded that Iran's expanding ballistic missile programme should be left out of any nuclear deal, despite the fact that they now have missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads and striking targets in Israel, Saudi Arabia or even Europe. North Korea has been an active partner with the Iranian regime in supplying weapons technology and a recent visit by senior North Korean missile experts to Tehran has confirmed fears that the regime is accelerating the size and quality of its intercontinental ballistic missile capability. Vladimir Putin has also now decided to renew a contract to deliver S-300 surface to air missile systems to Iran".

London, 24 Jun - Iran’s main opposition coalition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which is credited with exposing Tehran’s key nuclear sites, says it plans to unveil a detailed report on Thursday, 25 June on how Tehran has gained concessions from the West to keep its nuclear infrastructure intact.

The group’s US Representative Office plans to provide the report in an online conference at 10.30 am EST (16.30 European Time).

Washington, 20 Jun – US Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chided on Friday the Obama administration over comments by Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday that the US would be prepared to accept concessions regarding full disclosure of Iran’s past attempts to develop a nuclear weapon, including permitting sanctions relief before those issues are fully resolved.

London, 19 June - US President Barack Obama has come under pressure from senior members of his Democratic party to protect some 2,500 Iranian dissidents affiliated with Iran's main opposition group, the People's Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI/MEK), in Camp Liberty, Iraq, from attacks by militias loyal to Tehran.

"[We] demand that the people in Camp Liberty live in safety and security. No longer the targets of terrorist acts. No longer the victims of violence. No longer left unprotected," said Senator Robert Menendez (D., N.J), a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Menendez was addressing the annual Iran Freedom rally held by the Iranian opposition on June 13 in Paris. His videotaped remarks were carried by the Washington Times on Thursday.

Iranians attending an annual grand gathering in Paris over the weekend in support of democracy in Iran commemorated also the 50th anniversary of the establishment of Iran's main opposition group, the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK/PMOI).

The MEK is the main organisation in the opposition coalition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), led by opposition leader Maryam Rajavi.

At the major rally in Paris there was a large memorial in memory of the founders of the MEK and the 120,000 MEK members who had been executed by Iran's regime.

Paris, June 16 - Arab nations must act to curb Iranian influence if there is ever to be peace and stability in the Middle East, a major conference has been told.

Tehran is spreading terror and sowing sectarian discord in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, top Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi warned delegates at a conference on Sunday on religious extremism and Iran's 'destructive role'.

The major conference, held north of Paris at the headquarters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), drew participants such as former Algerian Prime Minister Sid Ahmed Ghozali, former Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohammed Elorabi, and former Palestinian Women's Affairs Minister Rabiha Diab.

The Iranian people desire an end to the regime's nuclear weapons program, the leader of Iran's Parliament-in-exile told Fox News in an interview on Friday.

The mullahs' regime in Iran “cannot and should not be trusted” to respect the terms of any agreement that the world powers reach with it on its nuclear projects, Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said.

Professor Raymond Tanter of the University of Michigan warns today in an article publish by The Hill that, “A bad nuclear deal with Iran would jeopardize world peace.”

While Tanter agrees that people would rather that President Obama can manage to talk sense into Iranian regime’s ears to halt their nuclear program, he expresses no hope as the Iranian regime has shown no intention to “forgo its nuclear weapons program.”

Without explicit support for the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the United Kingdom would never be able to truly confront the brand of Islamic fundamentalism that ISIS represents, David Jones, a Conservative Member of Parliament in the UK has argued.

"There should be no doubt in the West that Tehran is using its proxies to compete with ISIS for dominance in Iraq, Syria and the wider Middle East. Iran has absolutely no interest in defeating and degrading the Islamic fundamentalism that is threatening the region," Mr. Jones wrote on Tuesday in the website The Diplomat.

Organizers of the June 13 grand gathering in Paris in support of democratic change in Iran announced on Monday that a total of 330 Iranian associations have been involved in the event’s ongoing mobilization effort.

The mobilization campaign is being carried out in 345 cities from 24 countries throughout Europe, North America, Australia, the Indian sub-continent, the Middle East and North Africa.

In some countries, including France, Germany, UK, Poland, Czech Republic, and Netherlands, associations of local citizens and supporters of the Iranian Resistance are playing an important role in the mobilization campaign, the event organizers said.

Lord Alex Carlile, a member of the United Kingdom's House of Lords from the Liberal Democrat Party, has called on UK Prime Minister David Cameron to endorse the resistance movement to the mullahs' regime in Iran.

Lord Carlile's appeal came as Cameron was meeting with other world leaders in the G7 Summit in Germany.

Whether or not the UK remains part of the EU, and whether or not Prime Minister Cameron succeeds in renegotiating the UK's terms under a new EU Treaty, the issue of Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and Middle Eastern hegemony will remain an important issue for Europe, Lord Carlile wrote in the HUffington Post.

As more Iranian citizens are put to death in Iranian jails or subjected to long imprisonment for dissent and activism, a major rally this week in Paris can be a voice to affect U.S. policy, former U.S. Ambassador Ken Blackwell says.

“If you are paying attention to the Middle East, and thus to Iran, it would be prudent to also pay attention to France later this week. If you keep your eyes on Paris on June 13, you will witness to a powerful demonstration of opposition to Tehran’s clerical regime.”

Paulo Casaca is founder of the Brussels based international co-operation association ARCHumankind, “Alliance to Renew Co-operation among Humankind”, and the “Euro Reform Initiative”

In April, Iranian censorship officials closed down a monthly magazine, Zanan-e Emrouz, accusing it of encouraging cohabitation among unmarried couples, an illegal practice known in Iran as “white marriage.” With a title translating to English as Today’s Women, the magazine was the only women’s interest publication in the country, and its closure reflects a worsening situation for gender politics in the Islamic Republic.

However, the purported reasons for the closure are indicative of the rising tide of domestic challenges to the repressive rule of the Iranian ayatollahs. While the regime characterized Zanan-e Emrouz’s special reports on “white marriage” as unlawful advocacy, many of its defenders claim that the articles merely reported upon and explained the existing popularity of the practice.

A young man who has lost his father to the actions of the clerical Iranian regime calls upon people all across the globe to unite against “flagrant human rights violations” taking place as we speak in Iran, particularly against the increasing executions that are taking place during Hassan Rouhani’s tenure.

In the 1.5 minute long video that was published he presents the shocking figures of some 1600 executions in less than two years in Iran that includes almost 115 hangings in just two weeks. According to his information every seven hours one person is executed in Iran and according to the UN the actual figures are much higher as many of the hangings are not made public and are carried out in secret.

John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, and Javad Zarif, the Iranian regime’s Foreign Minister are due to meet in Geneva this weekend. The talks will be part of the ongoing effort to achieve a comprehensive agreement regarding the nuclear program in Tehran.

It is essential to the deal that inspection and verification visits preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons are allowed. The Obama administration still upholds the opinion that the nuclear deal will block the path of the regime to the bomb according to the NCRI.

The main Iranian opposition group, the National Council of the Resistance of Iran revealed on Thursday a delegation of North Korean experts in nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles visited a military site near Tehran in April amid talks between world powers and Iran over its nuclear program.The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) exposed Iran's uranium enrichment plant at Natanz and a heavy water facility at Arak in 2002 and has many other revelations.